Talk:Adam Radcliff
You know, I think we have enough characters who outlived some of their children to justify a category on them, if we think such a category would be desirable at all. Thoughts? Turtle Fan 20:31, 28 November 2008 (UTC) :It would have to be specifically worded category, so as not to imply that said person outlived ALL of their children. TR 21:58, 28 November 2008 (UTC) ::Yes, it would. "People who lost a child," perhaps. Would it be worthwhile, though? ::Let's see, offhand it would include VR and his wife; Gerin; Krispos; Shakespeare; Hogram; Diana and Ed McGraw and Diana's hippie protestor friends; Lincoln; Davis; Old Man Mantarakis; James Longstreet; Joe and Rose Kennedy, and that's all I can think of right now. I seemed to think your namesake once lost a child but no, she was the only surviving relative of his at the end of a very, very hard week. Maybe all the Minervans since their daughters all lived the mayfly's life, but that would be something of a special case, wouldn't you say? Turtle Fan 22:21, 28 November 2008 (UTC) :::Kermit Roosevelt died during WWI, so you were right. Judging by the names you threw out there, yes, I think the category has legs. :::This is how I would handle it: "This category lists characters who had at least on of their children predecease them. Please note: strictly speaking all Minervan males probably belong in this category, as female Minervans invariably die in child birth, and all of these females were someone's daughter." :::I'm not being sarcastic about the note about the Minervans, either. TR 22:39, 28 November 2008 (UTC) Sounds like a good idea. I think I'll call the category "Grieving Parents." Changing topics, I deliberately left young Radcliff out of the Atlanteans category because he died before the WoI. I thought Atlanteans was meant as a nationality, but looking at some of the other names in it I can see I was wrong. Turtle Fan 01:53, 29 November 2008 (UTC) :Yeah, that was more of a judgment call when I set that up, since we saw most of those characters had a sense of themselves as Atlantean at a pretty early stage in their history. TR 01:59, 29 November 2008 (UTC) ::Indeed they did. Turtle Fan 02:24, 29 November 2008 (UTC) Do we have a date for the opening of USA? In his first scene Victor reflects that Adam would be fourteen had he lived, so that gives us a DOB and a one-in-three shot at picking a correct DOD. Turtle Fan 02:42, 29 November 2008 (UTC) :Let's just say 1775. It's consistent with HT's pattern. TR 02:45, 29 November 2008 (UTC) ::That puts Adam's birth at 1761--Wouldn't that put it during the 7YW, when Victor never saw his wife? Uh-oh, this one was a cuckoo's egg! ::But it will work. Turtle Fan 03:27, 29 November 2008 (UTC) :::So maybe the Seven Years' War was over and done with in 3? TR 16:12, 29 November 2008 (UTC) ::::Then it was misnamed. Wouldn't be the first time; the Hundred Years' War was off by a whole generation. I think the Thirty Years' War also missed the mark. ::::You know, it doesn't say much for a war when the most distinctive feature after which you could name it is its length of time. Turtle Fan 16:56, 29 November 2008 (UTC) :::::And yet each of those wars you named were some of the most important and formative wars in European history. And the Seven Years' really was one of the true World Wars. Go figure. ::::::I had thought that too. You'd think a war that had nothing more than time as a namesake would have been some pissy little affair that didn't change much. ::::::Well I can understand the Hundred Years' War, they do need to emphasize that it lasted a long time. Also, a nice round number like a hundred years does have a certain romance to it, even to the point that I don't mind sacrificing the accuracy. ::::::Isn't the Seven Years' War sometimes called the War of Austrian Succession, or am I thinking of something else? ::::::Then again, maybe they had to name it something non-descriptive because it was so much bigger and more extensive than the wars they were used to fighting that it defied their abilities at definition. Turtle Fan 18:22, 29 November 2008 (UTC) :::::The status of the Seven Years' War in Atlantis has driven me crazy from day one. The only reason I called it that for this wiki is that HT never gave us anything else to call it. I wish HT would drop a date or two in the course of events. TR 17:04, 29 November 2008 (UTC) ::::::Now that you mention it, we haven't had a date since Edward Radcliffe's death. And there have been so many movies I've wanted to see since then too . . . Turtle Fan 18:22, 29 November 2008 (UTC) :::::The Seven Years War wasn't a succession war. The War of Austrian Succession was the war just before the Seven Years War, in which Europe and its colonies fought for eight years straight and the only thing that changed at the peace treaty was recognition of Prussia's fait accompli in Silesia. Jelay14 02:09, 30 November 2008 (UTC) ::::::Recognition of Prussia's fait accompli in Silesia? Well shit, that's fucking huge! Here's to the superhuman Prussians whose resounding victory in the War of Austrian Succession secured recognition for their magnificent fait accompli in Silesia forevermore! ::::::Anyway I just read a passage saying that the 7YW ended "a dozen years earlier." So our dates of 1763 as end of OA and 1775 as opening of USA are internally consistent, at least. That means young Adam was born during the 7YW. I find it very odd that Victor didn't seem to notice, though I suppose such things aren't unheard of. If it happened while he was raiding deep into the south, that might explain it. He might not even have managed to make it home once in Adam's entire short life, though he does talk about the kid as though he remembers him. ::::::It also means poor Adam was born before the wedding, though maybe after the engagement. Shotgun wedding? Or good old-fashioned inconsistency? Turtle Fan 04:30, 30 November 2008 (UTC) ::::Inconsistency. TR 04:34, 30 November 2008 (UTC) :::My thoughts as well, but then I was reading a little more and VR said that mentioning children when Meg was already upset about his going to war would bring up a pain that was "older and deeper" than his marching off. In the same scene he reminded us that she had opposed his volunteering in the 7YW. However it also reaffirms that theirs was an interwar wedding, not a prewar. I'm still thinking Inconsistency, but a messy, hairy one. :::Shit, it's getting to the point where I can't enjoy HT books for themselves anymore; I feel like I just have to dredge up fodder for our project. Turtle Fan 05:16, 30 November 2008 (UTC) ::::That's when I take a week off. Usually clears my head. Alternatively, I remind myself I am not devoted to any other project like this (well aside from Flint), so it's not as bad as all that. TR 05:20, 30 November 2008 (UTC) :::::Maybe I'll try to make myself scarce till I've finished USA. Of course this has gotten to be a major pastime for me so I might not be able to stand the boredom that long. Turtle Fan 23:39, 30 November 2008 (UTC) ::::Enjoying this book shouldn't be hard, provided you don't mind for loads of combat and the numerous parallelism that exist. Jelay14 23:42, 30 November 2008 (UTC) :::No, it seems enjoyable. The parallelism I'd expected. The historical setting being parallelled is one whose fiction I usually enjoy. (Jeff Shaara's Rise to Rebellion was just a great read, though oddly enough I just couldn't get into The Glorious Cause.) I was hoping for more time exposing the road to war beyond mere "We're boycotting England because we hate paying taxes." :::But I do feel like I'm going through looking for shit to catalog. I felt that way for MwIH, too, last summer, and BtG last spring (even though I never wrote much on it) and even OA last winter despite the fact that I wasn't even actively working here then. Reading the Krispos trilogy last fall didn't make me feel that way because I knew it was already about as thoroughly covered as I had any interest in making it. Turtle Fan 00:27, 1 December 2008 (UTC) Moving to the Minor Characters page? Any objection to moving Adam to the Minor Fictional Characters in Atlantis page? He's perhaps a little more important than most minor characters, in light of the fact that he is the son of Victor Radcliff, but his role in the story is relegated to the few lines about his death, and then that death added insult to injury when Radcliff sired Nicholas. TR 17:23, February 8, 2012 (UTC) :I'm on board with the plan we've discussed on the forum, but I would like to point out that Nicholas, whom you mention, is really just a geneological cypher himself. Granted, his branch of the family tree didn't end with him, which gives him a higher level of relative importance than Adam, but he never actually does anything in the story aside from cause other characters to react to the fact of his existence. Victor thinks "Oh shit, now I'm in trouble." Most of a lifetime later Frederick thinks "Oh yeah, my dad. He died ages ago. Never really knew him." The only POV who comes between the two in terms of in-universe chronology is Audobon, and he doesn't know Nicholas Radcliff from the wind; so the article on Nick only describes his consanguinity in relation to other characters, like so many minor characters we've discussed moving to family pages. So in the interest of fairness, Nick may have to join his half-brother on the Radcliff page and nowhere else. Turtle Fan 20:36, February 9, 2012 (UTC) ::I find this argument persuasive. TR 20:37, February 9, 2012 (UTC)